Today is my sweet mama's Angelversary. It's been 12 years...it hardly seems possible. It took a full decade, and losing Mr. Virgo, before I stopped trying to pick up the phone on Sunday nights to call her. She died just six weeks before her first great grandchild was born. Oh...she would have loved these girls!

My mom was "Mom" to all my friends. She loved them all like her own. And the feelings were mutual. We had lots of slumber parties at my house and Mom had as much fun as us girls did. I could make my mom laugh till she could hardly catch her breath and that was one of my greatest joys. That woman loved to laugh and she deserved every bit of it she could get. She didn't have an easy life.

No, not it IS time to say goodbye. There WAS time to say goodbye. Sometimes people write and say they didn't get a chance to say goodbye to their loved one before they died. Sometimes they write and say even though it was difficult to watch their loved one go through an extended illness, they are grateful for the time they had for saying all the things they wanted to say. I get that...and both sides of that coin suck.

I wrote this post yesterday afternoon as I sat basking in the warmth of the sunlight streaming in the south facing windows. It was the first time I've seen the sun in a week...one of the decidedly downsides of living in the Mid-Ohio Valley. We've been getting reports of an impending major snowstorm since I got in on Monday. Estimations of snowfall amounts change not only hourly, but with each flip of the channel or click on a weather app. This puzzles me.

Ok...warning. This is not a fun subject but sometimes we have to touch on the tough stuff. If you aren't up for it, come back tomorrow. It's ok. We'll do something lighter tomorrow.

We talk a lot here about death and dying. We speak from the perspective of the survivor...the one who was so cruelly and sometimes suddenly left behind. Some of us watched our loved ones go through countless, hideous tortures with the hope of a cure, a miracle, another chance. Some of us had them yanked away instantly.

I was sitting around with some ladies after the Salon on Sunday in Cincinnati. We were chatting about my downsizing adventure and one asked if there was anything I got rid of that I later regretted. I had to really think about it and she surmised if it took me that long to think of something, the answer was probably "No". I've had a couple of days to think about it though and here's what I've come up with.

Home is where the heart is. Home is where I park it. And home isn't always where I live. The concept of home is evolving within me. I was steadfast all my life in saying West Virginia is my home. And, by all rights, besides being where I was born, it is the home of my heart. As my grandchildren grow and my family thrive, my home is with them which happens to be in Colorado. And, my house is my home and it happens to be on wheels so home may be in South Dakota or a driveway in Arvada or a beach in South Carolina or a bluff overlooking the Ohio River. My view of "home" is expanding. It is fluid yet at its core is love, comfort, security. That security is my family, including my son in law's family.

This is kinda cool. I picked up my mail today and the Hometown Journey Magazine was in it. That's the Christian magazine out of Houston that picked up my post a few weeks ago. So fun to see it in color glossy print! God is so good to me!

❤️

Sometimes I really miss having a dog. I haven't had a big dog for 15 years but when Mr. Virgo came along, he brought a little ten pound Yorkie Maltese mix. Cricket was 10 years old when she arrived so she was 17 when we sent her ahead of us to the Rainbow Bridge. She was a crotchety old woman by that time. She wouldn't let you touch her, bathe her, brush her, or trim her nails.

One of the greatest gifts we can offer another human being is comfort. We all need comfort to varying degrees. Yesterday, I met with a beautiful group of women and the act of gathering over coffee and delicacies alone offered each of us comfort. Then, gathering in a circle, they listened to me weave a tale of love and loss and hope. They opened up and spoke of their own losses. We laughed. We cried. And when we left the circle, we each were stronger in some way. We each "lit a torch" from the communal flame and we will take it out into the community to light more. We visited for 4 hours.
My hostess and I went to visit a lovely woman with an old soul. She has had a recurrence of breast cancer recently and we did a private visit for her in her home. She is a kindred spirit as a gifted Gemini. That was lovely, tender, silly and fun.

At least for a little while. It's so hard to leave them! But they understand I have some important work to do in the next few months so it's all good.
God watched out for me yesterday especially well. I got to the airport too early to check my bags in so I sat at a little restaurant and let time flow over me as I watch the travelers going to and fro. To say I "enjoyed lunch" would be a nod to the experience it provided, not the food itself. Afterward, I went to the Post Office in the airport and shipped a box of clothes. It was half what the charge is for a heavy bag and I had the time.